With the growth of intelligent terminals and the development of network applications, a user may access various types of network applications, such as social-type instant communication applications and shopping-type applications, through various types of application client terminals that are installed on a terminal. During an access, an identity of a user generally needs to be authenticated, such that the user is allowed to use various application functions after the authentication of the identity is successful.
In existing technologies, a user generally needs to enter an authentication password in an authentication interface during identity authentication, and a server confirms that the user passes the identity authentication upon verifying that the entered authentication password is the same as an authentication password during user registration. However, an authentication password is generally a simple combination of numerals and letters, and is easily stolen by a malicious third party. Therefore, existing methods of identity authentication mode are relatively poor in reliability and are prone to causing user information to be stolen, thus resulting in the poor security of authentication.